SENTINEL WATCH October 7, 2002 Issue

From barriers to bridges

By Marta Greenwood

The Iran-Iraq War began in 1980, lasted eight years, and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It was one of the great human tragedies of recent Middle Eastern history.

I was born in Iran, and I emigrated to the UK when I was 18. I was living in London during the years of the Iran-Iraq War; and in spite of our cultural conflicts, most of my best friends were Iraqis. Nevertheless, during the war, we supported each other in friendship, even though both of our countries (where most of our families still lived) were being destroyed day by day.

Today, as I hear news of the threat of war looming in Iraq again, I pray each day for world peace and never forget my friends and their families in Iraq. I wasn't always able to see people from other cultures so lovingly. As an Iranian, I had to make a great effort to heal within my own heart the many prejudices I grew up with. However, through learning about the ideas of brotherly love in Science and Health, one by one I learned to shed those prejudices.